Ceremony

At Ts’eh’s house, Tayo discovers that Ts’eh knew his cattle were coming and has trapped them so they couldn’t escape again. Tayo mistakenly believes the hunter is her husband and is worried the hunter might learn of her sexual encounter with Tayo. Tayo and Ts’eh visit the cattle, and he discovers they’ve been maimed from abusive ranching practices. He entrusts Ts’eh with the cattle and leaves to get help packing up the cattle. Tayo returns with Robert to find Ts’eh’s home abandoned but the cattle well cared for. In Ts’eh’s bedroom, Tayo finds a shield on the wall that was not there before. The constellations from Tayo’s ceremony are painted on the shield.

Tayo returns home with his cattle, and his mental health is dramatically improved from his journey. Auntie Thelma is highly suspicious. She suspects Tayo will regress into his trauma and self-destructive behavior. Tayo does not see Ts’eh again for a long while. He grows lonely and misses her. Rescuing the cattle has ended the drought, and conditions on the reservation improve. Tayo eventually meets Ts’eh again, and the two begin living together on her ranch while Tayo tends to his cattle there. Tayo realizes that his uncle’s dreams are finally coming true.

Tayo and Ts’eh perform ceremonies to draw his journey to a close under a cave painting of a mystical elk, A’moo’ooh. Ts’eh warns Tayo that his ceremony isn’t over yet: The destroyers want to ruin Tayo’s recovery and ensnare him again in witchery.

Emo has learned about Tayo’s life on the ranch and spreads rumors that Tayo has a mental illness, lives alone, and believes in magic. Emo gathers up the reservation elders and brings army doctors to town to take Tayo back to the veterans’ hospital. Tayo prepares for Emo’s arrival and wants to confront him. Instead, he is picked up by Harley and Leroy, who want him to go drinking with them. Tayo refuses, relents, and panics. The alcohol and fear cause him to pass out. When he comes to, he finds himself deserted in the truck in a strange place: Harley and Leroy dropped him off in the middle of nowhere for Emo to murder.

Tayo discovers he is in an abandoned uranium mine, used to produce the nuclear bombs dropped in World War II. As Tayo looks for a way out, he realizes that the mine is a ceremonial site for the destroyers—a place to conjure the destruction they crave. Night falls and Tayo watches as Emo, Leroy, and Pinkie arrive in the mine and look for him. Harley was supposed to keep an eye on Tayo; since he didn’t, Emo has decided to torture and kill Harley to lure out Tayo. Tayo wants to kill Emo and knows he easily could since the other man is very drunk. However, Tayo realizes that the destroyers only want “a victim and a corpse” (233). By restraining himself from violence, Tayo wins the struggle for his story and keeps himself from witchery. He crosses a river back onto the reservation at sunrise, completing his ceremony.

Hummingbird and Fly deliver the tobacco to Buzzard, who cleanses the town as promised. Corn Mother reappears and brings the storm clouds back to the people. She warns them to stay out of trouble and reminds them that “[i]t isn’t very easy / to fix up things again” (237).

Tayo tells his story to the elders in a kiva (a round meeting room used by Laguna Pueblo people for ceremonial and meeting purposes). The elders believe Ts’eh is A’moo’ooh and that Tayo has been blessed. They believe Tayo will meet her again. Afterward, Tayo returns to his life with the cattle. Emo’s mental health quickly deteriorates, and he is banished from the reservation for life after killing both Pinkie and Leroy.

The novel ends with an extended verse prayer that marks the end of Tayo’s ceremony. Tayo offers up his story to the sunrise as a show of thanks.